Most Days, I Am Fine.

After a lifetime of being on a low fat/ no fat diet, and now, after two full years of being a pretty religious vegan pescetarian (not by choice, but by intolerance necessity), I must say that I am mostly used to it. I don't crave meat anymore, even bacon, and I always tell myself that there is no need to eat “other things” since I am always full and fulfilled when I do eat what I can.

I refer to it as “not being able to color with all the crayons in the box, but still able to color, and thus still having the fun”. And I pretty much believe that. I should have probably been a vegan long before I turned 39, but I didn't have the need to until meat and animal products made me literally sick.

I am very used to my diet now, to the point that when a restaurant sneaks something in my food, I can tell immediately and I do feel sick, not happy about the inadvertent breaking of the rules.

Like I said, I don't feel restricted in any way and I don't wish “what if.” To me, those would be a waste of time and energy. I am pretty much settled in my new reality – which has been always changing over the years. Until today. And you knew this was coming, right?!

I have loved sushi, all my life. I didn't grow up eating it (we didn't have such diversity in communist, and post-communist Romania), but once I had it in The States (around 2002 or so), it was love at first bite. I have eaten it till last year in December, when my aortic valve was getting so bad that it needed surgery. I was afraid to eat any raw fish, because of all the bacteria that could be introduced into the body and damage the valve with it.

After the valve was repaired, I cannot eat it now for more than one reason: raw meat contamination is just one of them, but also, I have not found conclusive information on what the content of Vitamin K is in the seaweed wrapper, and that can throw off my INR, since I would be eating it just occasionally. Another reason for not eating it is because  I cannot eat soy (intolerant, as well), and there is a lot of soy contamination with any sushi, for sure.

So, today, our office ordered sushi for one of our office work lunches, and not only that but we had our own sushi chef on site, too. Every roll I saw leaving our kitchen was amazing – huge portions, too, and all you can eat. I thought I was going to faint. Today, I can say that it was the first time, in … ever since I can remember, that I wish my diet would be different and that I could eat sushi once again.

I ate my home-made and home brought whole grain pasta with chickpea “meat balls” and home-made tomato sauce. Yummy, too, but … not sushi. Some sacrifices we have to make, for our health.

I wish your journeys through this are easy and successful.
Much health to all!